Part of the confusion here may be with file asociation. When dealing with file association, we are talking about which program is used to open a file. Switch is only a file converter. It does not deal with file association. If you converta file to MP3 format, for example,the converted file should use your default program for opening MP3 files that you convert. Let’s say that Windows Media Player is your default program for opening MP3 file. Any files you create with Switch will open in Windows Media Player. Hope this helps.

Hi Tom-all,

In my experience, I just could not find how to associate an input file with the program. I found no place where I could select an input file and then proceed. If I opened a folder or browsed, I would be led to my usual windows explorer panel, with no association with the actual program. That was my chief difficulty.

                                                            Take care and thanks, Takis

When you open Switch, you will be on a button called Open Output Folder.It is 1 of five tabs. To the right are Output format, Encoder Option, a checkbox giving you the option of sending your files to the same folder. If you uncheck this box. If this box is not checked, you will need to open an output folder. Staying in the tab order, the last will show 0 items because none have been selected yet. As was mentioned in another E-mail. when the Alt key is pressed, you will see a traditional menu structure and land on the File menu. You can easily arrow across or down, and each item will be read. Oddly enough, I haven’t used this, but there is a help menu item. I haven’t explored the numerous options available. Staying on the file tab, however, and arrowing down you will see Add Files, and then Add Folders. Those of us who use Switch find it easy to work using Windows navigation. I am using Windows 7. I actually purchased the Plus version for $29 because a file I wanted to convert wouldn’t do so. This is a one-time payment, not a subscription. I hope this gets you started.

Hi Richard/all,

I downloaded switch this morning, but I have to admit that I did not succeed in converting. Alkthough it seems I understand what I should do with its structure, I always came up with a message that I have to select files to convert. Since I do not want to bother others, I wonder if there is a quick guide as what to do, or someone could give me some simple steps. When I open output folder, there seems to be an irrelevant window opening and I have to do contrl-tab to get back to the program. I don’t know what I am missing there, but some simple steps would be appreciated. With file convert I had none of these issues.

                                                            Cheers,

                                                            Takis

Hi,

I just tried out the free version of Switch.

It is very easy to use.

If you have an iPhone and want to make ringtones, it can convert to .m4r format, along with a bunch of others.

It can convert different file types to the one you want at the same time.  I just did a quick test with a .wav file and an .m4r file and converted them to mp3 in one step.  I do not know what the maximum number of files might be, but it is pretty fast and retains the information you want.

Richard

Hi Mike/all,

Is switch better than convert file and in what way?

                                                            Take care, Takis

Hi all,

I am not an expert on audio programs, but did some research on this. I have a folder with archival material from the Smithsonian collection from the former Yugoslavia, Italy and Mexico. I copied it on a different part of the pc. Then I took off three files related to album icons, and asked file converter to convert the mp3. It refused to do so in .wav, because I simply had one file converted to .wav before. So I did this in .ogg. There was no progress bar with the program, but when I hit escape, all files were there, it seems it’s done very quickly, there were about 61 files to convert. The unfortunate thing is that it places the .wav file next to its .mp3 counterpart, so you have to manually delete all .mp3s thereafter. Then I went to the folder and tried groove which is a program I like, despite its mishaps. No play, whereas vlc and windows media player would play the .ogg. So, I removed the one .wav file existing, otherwise file converter would not permit me do a conversion. Once it was taken away, it did convert all files from .ogg into .wav and groove is playing fine, except that it cannot derive the info on artists and song titles. Needless to say, I had again, to manually, delete the .ogg files from the folder. I hope I have not tired you with this, and that it may be useful to others. However, might I ask the more knowledgeable among us, which format is the better quality one, ogg or wav?

                                                            Cheers, Takis

There are other tools you could use for batch conversion if you wanted to.

BTW, this seems like a neat utility; maybe I’ll give ita  shot.

You cannot use File Converter to select a folder in order to convert all of its files. This makes sense as File Converter is smart enough not to appear when you've highlighted a file it can't convert and the possibility of this happening is much greater in a folder. I tested this by copying 3 mp3 songs to a folder I created and then bringing up that new folder's context menu where File Converter did not appear. On the other hand, if you know all the files in a particular folder are of the same type and convertible by File Converter, you can move to the list of files by pressing the F6 key and then highlighting them all by pressing ctrl + a. Shift F10 will bring up the context menu where File Converter will appear in order to convert multiple files. I would not suggest highlighting files of different types even if they are convertible by File Converter in order to do a multi-conversion since this seems like it might have unintended consequences.

Alan Lemly

Greetings,

This is the first line of the description from the File converter page:

File Converter is a very simple tool which allows you to convert and compress one or several file(s) using the context menu in windows explorer.

So, doing “several” files seems standard.  How one accomplishes that exactly is likely in the documentation.

HTH,

Richard